Smoke and Mirrors (Goosey Larsen Book 2), page 8
I hustled down to the curb, only to find my newspaper sitting there in a deep puddle of rainwater. It was wrapped in a plastic bag and all, but that damned paperboy must not have tied on the rubber band tightly enough. That paper had obviously been soaking for hours because the whole thing had transformed into nothing more than a pulpy wad of blurred headlines. This was the second time in the last two months, and I actually considered calling the News and Courier to complain, at least before I remembered that my paperboy was none other than CPD’s own Boo Boo Bannon. Believe me when I say it, no amount of soggy newspapers are worth getting on Boo Boo’s bad side.
Sergeant Greg “Boo Boo” Bannon was another one of our cops who’d retired with a full pension before he came crawling back to the job, although how he ever made it a full twenty-five years in the first place was a mystery to me. He was infamous for always misfiling his paperwork, which is the reason for his unique nickname. All his stacks of boo-booed reports were mostly just inconveniences for most of his career, although things came to a head about three years back when his squad actually made a decent arrest for a change. His guys were just finishing up a long weekday lunch at Juanita Greenberg’s when they walked out onto the sidewalk and ran smack into an armed robber, right as the guy was running off from the College Corner grocery holding the contents of the register drawer and a six-pack of Natural Light. But the next day, when the crook was brought before the bond judge, his entire arrest package was nowhere to be found. No warrants, no affidavits, no incident report, nothing. Half of Team One’s officers were called back in to scour the station for the missing paperwork, but it was no use. Without any charging documents, the judge had no choice but to kick the robber loose, free and clear. The Chief was really steamed up over that one, especially after it turned out that the women in the Personnel office were the ones who finally discovered the missing warrants and affidavits when they came into work the next Monday morning. Turns out that Boo Boo had accidentally mixed them all in with his retirement papers.
Since Bannon was raising six kids, the Chief decided to take pity and let him come back to work, although Boo Boo still got shafted with an assignment to the Jail Transport Unit. This new job required him to come into the station at six o’clock in the morning, seven days a week, just to transport each night’s prisoners up to the County Jail in North Charleston. Boo Boo hated the job at first and he messed up so many officers’ paperwork that he almost ending up retiring all over again, but he changed his tune once he realized that all those early hours would allow him to pick up one of the News and Courier’s early morning delivery routes. All told, Boo Boo was doing pretty well for himself, what with two steady paychecks on top of his pension.
The printing was badly smeared, but I was still able to make out the words “City Police.” The headline was stamped in these big, 18-point letters, which really got me salivating. See, the News and Courier features a genteel, reserved style of reporting, and for them to use the bold type it had to have been a decent-sized scandal. I cursed my luck, kicking the whole soggy mess out into the parking lot. Little blobs of newsprint stuck to my bare toes.
I started kicking my foot out in an attempt to shake off the wet paper, but twisted around in a circle and almost lost my balance. My back wrenched out in an unnatural direction, but the pain disappeared in an instant once Mrs. Ferguson’s walkway caught my eye. Not so much her walkway, really, but rather the item that was lying in the middle of it. See, it’s pretty unusual to see anything blocking up that sidewalk of hers. Mrs. Ferguson is one of those psychotic folks who sweeps the walk every morning at sunrise, even on days when her hip’s bothering her so bad that she has to use the broom as a crutch. I swear, I even saw her out there working a gas powered edger one time, even though it baffled me why anyone would put that much effort into a rental property. But who knows, I guess you have to do something to kill time while you wait for the Reaper.
That morning, lying there on Mrs. Ferguson’s walkway was a pristine copy of the News and Courier, and I’d never seen a newspaper look more attractive. It was the double-sized Sunday edition with coupons, funnies and all, rolled up snug in a watertight bag. A rubber band had been lovingly double wrapped around the outside, and the plastic seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, practically begging me to touch it. I’d never even known that Mrs. Ferguson subscribed to the N&C, and I suspected that she got up every morning at 4:30 at the sound of newspaper striking asphalt. That cagey old bird probably slept with her hearing aids in.
I stole a glance over at her apartment. The blinds were drawn tight, definitely an odd sight for that time of day. It was almost noon, and normally Mrs. Ferguson’s ferns would have been fixed in the front window for several hours already, just soaking up the sun’s rays. I looked around the lot but didn’t see her Chevette anywhere. With the keen powers of deduction that I’d sharpened through years of detective work, I figured that Mrs. Ferguson must already be up and on her way to Sunday services, or else she’d died quietly in her sleep and her car had been stolen sometime during the night. It seemed like she wouldn’t be needing her newspaper either way, so I hustled out into the parking lot and swapped out my soggy mess of newsprint for hers. Ten seconds later I was safe inside my kitchen, and with any luck, there had been no eyewitnesses.
The stink of a scandal was practically wafting up from the front page, but somehow I managed to hold myself back from jumping right in. I wanted to savor the moment, so I took my time fixing up a bowl of Froot Loops. The table had to be set just so, with the cereal bowl in the middle, a can of Diet Coke on the left hand side and the newspaper on the far right, headline still facing down to the table. I hiked up my briefs, took a seat and with a deep breath, flipped the paper over.
The headline practically screamed off the front page. “SERIAL ARSONIST TARGETING PENINSULA? CITY POLICE REPORT INVESTIGATION ONGOING”
It was a beautiful sight, and it nearly brought a tear to my eye. I sniffed the fresh ink and rubbed my fingers lovingly across the thick black letters. What with all the bullshit that the brass dumps off on the working cops, it’s a great feeling to see the Department on the receiving end every once in a while. A little further down the page, there was a stock photo from Captain Russell’s personnel file jammed in between two columns of newsprint. As I examined his crisp flattop haircut and bulging neck veins, I found myself smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt. I loved the thought of him sitting in the hot seat, probably perched up on a telephone book, and I had to pause to catch my breath. Finally, after the initial wave of glee subsided, I hunkered down and dug into both the Froot Loops and the rest of the article.
It read: “Late last night, the News and Courier received a tip from a reliable anonymous source who stated that the Charleston Police Department had assembled a special task force in response to this weekend’s house fire at 12 Sires Street. Friday night’s fire resulted in the death of College of Charleston senior Summer Newberry, age 22, and severe injuries to one of the home’s residents. Our anonymous tipster claimed that in addition to Friday’s fire, as many as fifty-two other cases of arson may have occurred in and around the downtown neighborhoods of Elliotborough and Cannonborough within the past four years. Police are working under the assumption that all of these arsons are the work of the same individual.”
“Police Chief Rufus Malik Greene was off duty and unavailable for comment at press time. Saturday night’s command duty officer, Captain Bertrand Russell, did confirm that a number of veteran officers were on a special assignment in the downtown area, but declined to provide the number of officers tasked or their specific purpose. When asked to comment on the claim that police suspected the work of a serial arsonist, he said, “I’ll have to get back to y’all on that.”
“Although details remain scant, several neighborhood residents were able to confirm that there had been an alarming rash of house fires in recent months, almost exclusively at abandoned houses. News and Courier staff members have launched their own investigation into the matter, and this newspaper will continue to provide updates in the days ahead.”
Wow, I thought, as I shook my head in wonder. It was a gorgeous article. Short, sweet, and to the point, without any of the actual journalism stuff that usually makes for such tedious reading. I set the paper down and sat still, listening to the sound of my beating heart. I normally can’t stand it whenever the news media makes cops look incompetent, but this was completely different since the reporter had only called out the Chief and the Captain.
A little lower down on the front page, tucked into a corner under a much smaller headline, the word “Investigation” caught my eye once again. I skimmed that article too but was quickly disappointed, since it was just some fluff piece announcing that the State Board of Ethics was finally planning to issue a ruling about Duke Regan’s conflict of interest case. Regan was the city’s Director of Planning and Neighborhoods or something, and apparently some busybody had filed an ethics complaint on him a while back. The root of the argument was that Regan shouldn’t be allowed to work with the city’s housing developments downtown, at least not while he owned his own real estate company down on Broad Street. That was none of my concern, though, so I thumbed past the article and the entire news section along with it.
I finished off the Froot Loops in record time and bolstered myself back up by pulling out the funnies. The Sunday comics are always the best part of the paper, and I’ve never understood why they don’t just sell those separately. I mean, all the other crap is just ten pounds of advertisements and useless filler, like for example the World News section. Who’s got time to care about the rest of the world, when we’ve got problems of our own right here in America?
I did have myself a good laugh over Garfield, since that cat is so lazy it’s ridiculous. After a while, though, all that reading started to give me a headache. I kicked off my flip flops and eased over to the couch, with the remote control in one hand and my half-full can of Diet Coke in the other. The Sunday football games hadn’t started up yet so there was nothing on the tube except for some boring golf tournament, but I didn’t mind since the sport makes a great background for napping. After all, there’s nothing more relaxing than lying down on the couch and listening to other people enjoying the great outdoors.
7.
Three or four hours later, I finally rolled out of the recliner and began the process of getting ready for work. Now normally I always try my best to avoid being on time for anything, since people tend to mistake punctuality for interest. Once some supervisor gets it in his head that you actually give a damn about your work, they’ll constantly be expecting you to volunteer for every last special assignment that pops up. The bottom line is, being on time is always going to mean more work for you.
Still, by the time the sun started falling I was fully dressed and driving towards downtown much earlier than necessary. I hadn’t worked on a Sunday in years, but oddly enough I found myself looking forward to it. The best part of working at CPD was all the free entertainment, and I wasn’t about to miss a minute of what was sure to be a dazzling display of smoke and mirrors. After taking the hard left turn off the James Island Connector, I punched down on the gas to sail through a yellow light and cut off a station wagon full of lost tourists in the process. Normally I might have pulled them over just to curse them out for driving so slowly, but there was simply no time. That night, I was a man on a mission.
Any false enthusiasm I’d managed to muster disappeared a minute later, when I pulled into the station. It was bad enough to find that I wasn’t the first cop to arrive, but it actually looked as if I might be one of the last. All the parking spaces were filled up with black and white cruisers, and a couple of cops had even risked the wrath of Captain Russell by parking up on the grass. Dozens of rookies in pressed uniforms were surging toward the back door, kids so new that I only recognized one or two of them. That’s not really surprising, though, with people jumping ship from the Department nearly every week. They’re going to have to install a revolving door in the lobby pretty soon, what with the way the resignations keep coming in. Once most of those bright-eyed rookie cops spend a few months out on patrol and come to realize how this clown circus is run, they typically head off in search of greener pastures. It doesn’t help that nearly all of these young kids look the same, so after a while it becomes hard to tell them apart. They’re all slick-haired college boys these days, with a couple of ponytailed splittails mixed in for diversity’s sake. I managed to bite my tongue as I rolled past all the fresh meat, finally claiming a narrow parking space in between two Harbor Patrol SUVs.
By the time I’d squeezed my way out from between the two trucks, most of the other cops had already filtered their way inside. I followed the herd straight to the Squad Room, not even taking a moment to filch a honey bun from the vending machine. I could barely fit inside the door as the scene was unbelievable, a wall-to-wall mob of blue polyester suits, standing room only. All the cops who’d been on duty the night before were still in attendance, plus at least fifteen or twenty new faces. I saw Slipper sitting up towards the front for a change, and I managed to catch his eye from my little corner of the room. He gave me a disgusted grin, so I nodded back in agreement. We’d both seen our share of overkill on special assignments before, but this was more like mass murder. In fact, the only smiling faces in the crowd belonged to the young rookies. That was either because this was their first big special assignment, or because they hadn’t had to work the night before. The mood in the air was a lighthearted one, but all the smiling and joking stopped the instant Captain Russell walked in.
Commanders always try to project some kind of authoritative presence, which is why Captain Russell swung the door open as hard as he could, clipping some poor rookie in the shoulder. I tried to judge the Captain’s mood, but the stern glower on his weathered face confirmed that he’d already seen the News and Courier. Despite his best efforts at looking focused and driven, though, Captain Russell just seemed to appear kind of old and obsolete. A strong odor of Old Spice wafted into the room along with him.
“Let’s get down to business, troops!” he barked, charging to the front of the room. “Somewhere out there, an arsonist is on the prowl.” Cops shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and I finally spotted Big Jim through the crowd. He was sitting on the far side of the room, underneath the Officer of the Month portraits which hadn’t been updated in nearly two years. Jim gave me a wink and leaned forward on his elbows, as if he was hanging on Captain Russell’s every word. Up at the head of the class, even Slipper broke open a notebook and poised his pen over it.
Captain Russell stood behind the podium, poking his nose up over the top. His hairy knuckles gripped the edges of the lectern so tight that his stubby fingers turned a deep shade of red. He took a deep breath, then eased into his rant. “I’ll keep this short and sweet tonight, gentlemen.” The handful of female cops jammed in among us all raised their penciled eyebrows at the slight, but the Captain didn’t seem to notice. “There have been no major changes since yesterday evening. Sergeant Johnson, please get with those officers who are just joining us and fill them in on their assignments.” Slipper gave a quick nod as he flashed his best shit-eating smile, but Captain Russell didn’t even bother to look in his direction.
“I’m assuming that every last one of you…” He paused to look slowly around the room. It was clear that he was trying his best to match everyone’s gaze in turn, but only the newer cops were dumb enough to make eye contact. Me, I snatched a stray wanted flier up off the floor and pretended to take notes as the Captain went on. “…are such dedicated officers that you keep current on local news. If you’ve already read this morning’s paper, there should be no need to go into any further detail.”
I bit my lip and gave a stern nod of agreement, just in case the Captain was looking my way. He wasn’t. For some reason, although for some reason he was completely focused on giving Big Jim an evil staredown. Jim just smiled back, licking those greasy lips of his.
After a long moment, Captain Russell finally broke his stare and went on. “Y’all know what we’re up against. Fifty-three arsons, likely committed by the same suspect. Now the only way we’re going to catch this person is to get out there and stop everything that moves. That means FIs, people!” He smacked the lectern with his thick palm as he spelled it out for the rookies. “Field! Interviews! I want you running warrants checks on everyone you stop! Everyone! And for the love of Jesus, make absolutely sure those FI cards are complete when you turn them in to Detective Rothschild!”
The speech didn’t sound half-bad, and it was definitely one of Captain Russell’s finer moments. If we had been a junior varsity football team going into the state championships it might’ve actually worked to pump us up a little, but since we were a just mob of tired cops dragged in on our days off, it didn’t. The Captain paused to catch his breath while the color gradually drained from his face, the shade slipping back to a healthy pink hue. He took another long look around the room, and that was when he made his one big mistake. “Now, does anyone have any questions?”
Hands shot up from almost every table. Judging by all the crisp ironed sleeves waving high in the sky, it looked like only the younger rookies were dumb enough to put their two cents in. The Captain sighed and waved his little fist at one of them, a young kid who’d been flapping his wing harder than all the others. “What is it, son?”
If the starched creases on his uniform didn’t mark the kid as a rookie, the fact that he kept his hand up surely did. “Any information on the suspect, sir? Do we know who we’re looking for?”
Silence. Everyone who’d been present on Saturday night just sat there aghast, as if they were about to witness a train wreck but were somehow helpless to stop it. The rookie just stood there too, his motionless arm still pointing straight overhead. Big Jim couldn’t maintain his composure, and had to bury his face in his flabby arms. His shoulders started shaking and those little hot dog rolls of fat along the back of his neck quivered from side to side with the motion. I knew he was laughing, but if you hadn’t been there the night before you would’ve sworn he was crying.
